Understanding
by MiddayStargazer
Summary: Ruby is growing up and begins to understand who she is.


Ruby is ten and notices a bright red stain in her underwear when she goes to the restroom. Chills crawl down her spine, she wants to vomit. Is she sick? Is this a disease? All day during school she makes sure no one sees the growing stain on her shorts by tying her hoodie around her waist. Ruby thought it will end when she goes home and changes but alas, her dad takes her and Yang, her sister, to the supermarket instead. Minutes feel like hours and she wishes they would go home already.

Upon arriving home her dad notices the stain. Ruby chokes on her tears as her dad explains it's natural for every girl to go through this odd phenomenon called "puberty". Then her dad comes to talk about another topic: sex. But Ruby tunes him out. She isn't sure why. She only nods in understanding except she doesn't.

Ruby is eleven and notices changes. Yang talks about boys more often. Dad and uncle Qrow glare at boys more often. For Ruby's birthday her dad gives her a corgi puppy. She names him "Zwei" after the corgi from one of her favorite anime. Zwei loves giving her kisses, Ruby giggles and scratches him behind the ears. She teaches him tricks and housebreaks him. Boys are not her concern.

Ruby is twelve and a boy tells her he likes her and kisses her cheek the day before moving away. He's nervous and shy, and the kiss is soft, but there are no sparks and no butterflies in her stomach. Ruby's left feeling weird and uncomfortable, like there's something wrong.

Ruby is thirteen and her classmates talk about their crushes and how much they want to kiss them. She listens from a corner but doesn't join the conversation. She doesn't have a crush on anyone, she doesn't want any of their mouthes close to hers, so she can't add anything to it. One of them still turns around and asks Ruby about her crush. No one believes her when she says no one. The next day there is a rumor that she loves one of her friends.

Ruby is fourteen and come back home to find her living room busy with laughter. She joins them and for a while everything seems fine, everyone is talking about embarrassing moments, and telling funny stories, and saying lame jokes. But then Yang smiles conspiratorially and winks at the two other adults, and starts questioning Ruby.

"You must have taken a fancy to someone!" She beams, while her dad and uncle Qrow roll their eyes. "So tell us, who do you like?"

Ruby tries to laugh it off and get out, and feels uncomfortable about it all, but her sister keeps asking and keeps asking and so she says the first name that comes into mind (because her classmates didn't believe her and she almost lost a friend because of it). This satisfies Yang for now and she commends Ruby for her good taste. No one notices Ruby slipping out of the room until much later, and they all think it's because she's a teenager now.

(Not one of them thinks that maybe they made she uncomfortable. No one thinks that maybe she would rather not talk about things like this.)

Ruby is fifteen and have resigned herself to the feelings of isolation. Her friends — who are two to three years older because she skipped two grades — talk about masturbating, about sex, about the "hot" people in the class. Her classmates still ask her who she's crushing on. Sometimes she says a random name, and most of the time she claims to be too busy with homework to worry about dating (which seems to be a good enough excuse), but in the privacy of her mind she still wonders.

She looks at women, trying to feel any sort of attraction towards them. She even tries kissing Weiss, a close friend, but she feels absolutely nothing. She concludes that she can't be neither homosexual nor bisexual. The logical leap to this is that she must be heterosexual, since those are the only options.

She tries to make herself fall in love with a boy, then. She stare at the so-called cute boy of her class for hours, waiting for the magical spark to appear. She tries to make herself love a boy based on his clothing. She tries to understand what the hell is it that people are talking about.

She wastes days, weeks, months on this task. She never succeeds.

Ruby is sixteen and knows she is broken. People still ask her about love and sex and crushes, and she still lies for fear of being different, of being alienated, of feeling even more isolated than she already is.

In Health class, they talk about "safe" sex; how to do proper condom use, how to avoid STDs, the Romeo and Juliet law, and that "no" means "no". Ruby pays attention but her curiosity is more scientific than emotional. She still doesn't really understand why people have sex despite all the lifelong risks. Because they're "in love"? There are so many ways to love one another. Why was sex a deciding factor in a relationship?

Deep down, Ruby knows she will marry one day, because it's always been a long life dream for her to start a family. But apparently it is mandatory to have sex while dating. So she resigns herself to pretending, to keep up the act. She tries and keeps trying not to let it bother her, but the idea of sex makes her stomach churn and her head tingle. She tries to pretend she isn't broken, but she knows she is.

Ruby is seventeen when she first sees the word "asexual", while reading Jughead. She ends up looking that word up, and finds a website dedicated to it. There are hundreds upon hundreds of comments in the forums, but she first read the FAQs.

"Asexuality is not feeling sexual attraction," she reads out loud, barely a whisper, as something inside of her clicks. It makes sense. It makes sense but she ignores it, and convince herself that she does feel it (because there was that boy she thought looked cute and that girl she considered pretty), and she thinks the only reason why she doesn't want sex is because she is broken. She knows this to be true.

Ruby closes all of the tabs related to that word. For the next weeks she pretends to never have found it, but it's always at the back of her mind.

( _It's a chance of being whole,_ her mind whispers, _and you deny it because you are normal. You've been trying to be normal for so many years and you must be, have to be, will be…_ )

Asexuality fits with her life. One day she almost doesn't believe her eyes. They notice black rings on Ren and Nora's middle right finger. Ruby might be broken, but maybe she isn't alone.

Ruby is eighteen, and she is more informed now. She has accepted that she is asexual (ace, as the community calls it), and is somehow much happier now. She knows she isn't broken, now. She knows this is an option that was never presented to her before.

Penny is the first person she comes out to. Penny is happy for her. But now Penny is gone.

Ruby is alone again.

Then Ruby talks to Yang's girlfriend, Blake. Ruby trusts Blake and slowly came out to her and her roommate Sun. They don't know what asexual is and research it. Upon learning and understanding the concept they fully support her. They encourage Ruby to come out to her family.

One night Sun receives a call. It's Ruby and she is crying her heart out.

She finally came out to her family, feeling safe and secure and confident in her knowledge. Her family is confused. They say that asexuality doesn't exist, that it's impossible not to feel sexual attraction. They tell her that she is too young, that she'll find the right person, not to worry, as if her biggest worry was to not fall in love, instead of not succeeding in life.

Ruby spends the night at Blake and Sun's apartment, listening to the rain and hoping it is all a bad dream.

Ruby's family feel awful. They acted like idiots and apologize when it's too late, and even as Ruby accepts their apologies her mind keeps whispering ( _but what if they are right? What if it's true, what if you are too young, what if you are faking it, what if, what if…_ )

Her family is cautious when asking her questions about it. They don't want to see Ruby cry again. It becomes an unspoken thing after. Something that is never talked about.

Sometimes Ruby feels like crying, but she doesn't really know why.

Ruby is nineteen when she comes out to her friends. She has put a wall around the fiasco with her family, and she explains everything to them. Her friends are openminded about it and agree that it fits with her behavior. They ask her questions and joke about it, but always make sure not to be offensive. Ruby smiles all thorough the afternoon, and even once she got home.

A few weeks later Jaune, another close friend, confides to her he might be broken, or incapable of love. He says, with concern and real worry in his eyes, that he didn't love his girlfriend, Pyrrha, the same way as she did. Even after having sex. Pyrrha is gone now, like Penny, and Jaune knows Pyrrha knew how he felt. Ruby hugs him and tells him not to worry and don't even cry about it. But there is a heavy feeling in her chest and a knot in her throat.

Ruby is twenty and the world exhausts her sometimes. She is tired of watching sex be such an important part of the plots of her favorite movies and TV shows. She is tired of being told in very subtle ways that her orientation isn't valid. She is tired of the looming threat of corrective rape, of people who hate on her for her sexuality, of stupid jokes and stupid tropes. She is tired of them all.

But Ruby also understands that she isn't broken. She knows she isn't alone. So she wears her ace ring with pride and wear the colors of the flag during the awareness week, and is ready to talk about it with anyone who listens. She is tired of being silenced, so she will yell until her throat is hoarse if that's what it takes for the world to listen.

She is human, and she accepts herself, and even if things get rough, they can also get better.

* * *

 ** _So…uh, this was a thing.  
I wrote this a bit ago and didn't find a good opportunity to post it.  
Pride month is about to end. I figured now was a good opportunity.  
Some of this (not gonna say what exactly) is from my personal experience. Although I'm not sure WHERE on the asexual spectrum I stand. I'm pretty sure it's demisexual though.  
For a long time I confused my asexuality for abstinence. (Which I still am. Yes, you can be asexual and still be abstinent. Attraction ISN'T action, remember that.)  
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that it's okay. If you're ace, you're not broken. You're not invalid. You're not "better" than anyone else.  
You're human. Just like everyone else. We all have doubts. We all have insecurities. We all have hardships. We all have dreams.  
Why we try to alienate each other despite it all, that is the question._**


End file.
